cybersecurity

DHS official: Agencies must make high-risk cyber threats top priority

Federal agencies should prioritize their information security requirements to ensure mission-critical operations are protected first, and delineate between "that which is aggravating and that which is truly dangerous," the Homeland Security Department's cyber chief Greg Schaffer said during a conference on Tuesday. Cyberattacks are growing far more sophisticated, in part because they're more difficult to detect, said Schaffer, who was appointed assistant secretary of DHS' Office of Cybersecurity and Communications in June. Schaffer and Dave DeWalt, chief executive officer of security vendor McAfee, spoke Tuesday morning at the GFirst conference in Atlanta hosted by the department's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. (NextGov) ›
CyberSECURITY

Cisco Wireless LAN Vulnerability Could Open 'back Door'

Some wireless access points from Cisco Systems have a vulnerability that could allow a hacker to redirect traffic outside the enterprise or potentially gain access to an entire corporate network, a security company said. At the root of the problem is the way that new Cisco APs are added to a network, according to ›
CyberCRIME

‘The Analyzer’ Pleads Guilty in $10 Million Bank-Hacking Case

Ehud Tenenbaum, aka “The Analyzer,” quietly pleaded guilty in New York last week to a single count of bank-card fraud for his role in a sophisticated computer-hacking scheme that federal officials say scored $10 million from U.S. banks. The Israeli hacker was arrested in Canada last year for allegedly stealing about $1.5 million from Canadian banks. But ›
CyberSECURITY

'Most dangerous' celebs to search for online

Be cautious if you plan to Bing Jessica Biel or Google Brad Pitt. A new report says you might get a virus. The Hollywood actors are among the top 10 celebrity searches online that can lead to computer problems, according to a report released Tuesday by the computer security company McAfee. The company named Biel the "most dangerous celebrity in cyberspace ›
CyberCRIME

Besieged by attacks, AT&T dumps celebrity hacker

Over the years, Kevin Mitnick has gotten used to the attacks on his website and cell phone account that routinely result from being a convicted hacker turned security expert. What he finds much harder to stomach is the treatment he's getting from his providers. Over the past month, both HostedHere.net, his longtime webhost, and AT&T, his cellular provider s ›
CyberATTACK

Gonzales just tip of iceberg in Heartland attack

Albert Gonzales, previously accused of breaking into TJX’s computer systems, was indicted on charges that a separate group he was involved in breached Heartland Payment Systems. Also indicted but unidentified and still at large were “Hacker 1″ and “Hacker 2,” labels that suggest Thing 1 and Thing 2 from “The Cat in the Hat” (and indeed Gonzales ›
CyberSECURITY

FTC extends breach notification to Web-based health repositories

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a rule that broadens the reach of data breach notification rules covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The new FTC rule applies to companies that provide an online repository of health information, such as vendors that provide Web-based tools that track and maintain blood pressure ›
CyberWAR

Air Force Establishes ‘Reduced’ Cyber-War Command

A year ago, the Air Force suspended its plans to set up a new “cyber command” for network defense and online warfare. The suspension came at a tumultuous time for the air service. Its two top officials had just been canned, botched airplane buys were under close scrutiny and Air Force nuke handlers were reeling from several potentially catastrophic gaffe ›
CyberWAR

Cyber Attack Against Georgia Blurred Civilian And Military

The cyber attacks against Georgia last year marked the first known time that computer networks were assaulted by civilians in conjunction with physical attacks conducted by a national military force. A report on the events of August 2008 by the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit research institute, suggests that future conflicts may follow a similar ›
CyberCRIME

Hackers break into police computer as sting backfires

An Australian Federal Police boast, on the ABC's Four Corners program, about officers breaking up an underground hacker forum, has backfired after hackers broke into a federal police computer system. Security consultants say police appear to have been using the computer as a honeypot to collect information on members of the forum but the scheme came undone ›
Featured

Alleged TJX hacker spun a wide web of cybercrime

Albert Gonzalez, 28, was the alleged ringleader of a cybercrime enterprise that swiped at least 170 million credit and debit card numbers. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that Gonzalez, already awaiting trial for the TJX data breach, along with two others were being indicted for five corporate data breaches (ZDNET) ›
CyberCRIME

Man Indicted for Massive Credit Hack

A 28-year-old Miami man was indicted Monday for the largest credit and debit card theft ever prosecuted in the U.S., with data from more than 130 million credit and debit cards stolen, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Albert Gonzales, also know as segvec, soupnazi and j4guar17, was charged, along with two unnamed co-conspirators, with using SQL injection attacks to st ›
CyberSECURITY

Gone Forever: What Does It Take to Really Disappear?

For Matthew Alan Sheppard, all of the anxiety, deception, and delusion converged in one moment on a crisp winter weekend in February 2008. From the outside, he hardly seemed like a man prepared to abandon everything. At 42, he’d been happily married for 10 years, with a 7-year-old daughter and a comfortable home in Searcy, Arkansas. An environmental health ›